West Africa's Anglophone bishops call for foreign debt cancellation

Published: 2004-09-01

HO, Ghana (CNS) -- Bishops from West Africa's English-speaking countries called for "outright cancellation" of international debts, which they said have been repaid several times. Speaking of previous centuries' slave trade, which sent millions of Africans away from the continent, the bishops said international debt has "turned out to be a new form of enslavement for the people." Bishops from the Association of Episcopal Conferences of Anglophone West Africa -- representing Gambia, Ghana, Liberia, Nigeria and Sierra Leone -- met in Ho Aug. 21-30 to discuss good governance in Africa. The bishops welcomed the peace and stability that has returned to the region but criticized continued corruption by government leaders. The bishops said the economic distress of West African countries "is ever worsened by the huge and crushing burden of foreign debts from which the populace hardly benefited." Such debt needs to be canceled "for the sake of justice and fairness," the bishops said in a statement issued at the end of their meeting.

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